coinvscomTell them apart

Quick tell: coin is a noun, com is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“coin” is a noun and “com” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,891
“coin” frequency rank
#14
“com” frequency rank
41905
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coin com
Definition plural de cù indica várias relações: companhia, causa, instrumento, ligação, modo, oposição

Where the eye mixes coin and com

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
coin
3 ch
com

Why the eye confuses coin with com

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: coin is /konʲ/ while com is /kõ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41905, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coin is recorded at frequency rank #41,891, classified as anoun, pronounced /konʲ/. com is at rank #14, tagged as aprep, pronounced /kõ/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 41905, this pair ranks #23,945 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of coin vs com

Shared letters: co. Private to "coin": in. Private to "com": m.

"coin" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "com" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coinccoin · cion · coinn · coni · ocin

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "coin" and "com" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "coin" is a noun and "com" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "coin" or "com" show up more?
"com" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14 in our Portuguese list, against #41,891 for "coin". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "coin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "com" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,945 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coin" and "com" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coice vs coin". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #23,945 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list